Keith Ablow

—Resigned from the American Psychiatric Association because of its support of LGBTQ patients. 

—Had medical license suspended by the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine due to multiple allegations of inappropriate sexual activity with patients. The medical board wrote that “Dr. Ablow poses an immediate and serious threat to the public health, safety and welfare.” 

—Warned that accepting trans people will destroy “our worthiness as a people.” He wrote: “Turning our culture upside down to favor such individuals will truly, in my opinion, carry the risk of gradually making our entire nation hostage to irrational and firmly held beliefs. And if this culture caters to those beliefs, in the absence of a convincing groundswell of evidence that we ought to, then our foundation in the truth will be gone. Our worthiness as a people will be gone, too. Let me put this starkly: America may no longer be a country worth dying for in a war against extremists if we simultaneously, psychologically abuse millions upon millions of our children by insisting that they go to the bathroom beside adults who are physically of the opposite gender. Why would a country that does that have any moral standing, whatsoever? Why would our enemies not point to that reality and mock us for criticizing darkness in their own cultures? Really, what could be worse than the Department of Education commanding schools to let anatomic boys use the girls’ locker rooms and restrooms? This country better get its head screwed on straight, or it is either going to be taken hostage by extremists of our own (like the transgender community, insisting on a takeover of our culture and good sense) or by extremists outside our country who can assert that we, not they, represent a scourge that could topple all truth.”

—Said of trans students using the proper bathroom: “I know that other psychiatrists may well disagree, and I know that LGBTQ activists will criticize me, but I believe that allowing this ‘choice’ is profoundly destructive, psychologically, to all students, including the ones who identify themselves as transgender

—Said of marriage equality: “Here’s the thing, the states need to get out of the marriage business. There’s no way that the state of California can deny a marriage license to four spouses now. Eight spouses, or I would say three human spouses and the canine they absolutely love because if love is the foundation of marriage, they can love their dog, too.”

—Claimed Rachel Dolezal was an example of a trans “slippery slope”: “I warned, right, I warned during the Caitlyn Jenner experience, during the Chaz Bono experience, that it would pave the way for people not only to assert the identity, the sexual identity or gender identity they felt they were, but also other kinds of identity, including racial identity. We’ve rushed into this, Steve. We’ve rushed into letting people say, ‘I feel, therefore I am.’ And we’ve done it without a lot of psychological study and without clear facts to guide us.”

—Claimed out lesbian Hilary Rosen has “chosen an alternative lifestyle” and is “anti-gender” because of it: “Hilary Rosen vilifying women who choose to be stay-at-home wives and mothers is particularly ironic, given that she has chosen an alternative lifestyle raising twins with a female partner, meaning no father-figure is present in her home. To enjoy the benefits of her alternative lifestyle while denigrating the lifestyle of Ann Romney shows that her seemingly infinite bandwidth for alternative lifestyles flows in one direction: only alternative…. These ‘anti-gender’ women have it in for anyone who embraces her femininity, maternal instincts and capacity to nurture as their highest priority—postponing or passing up other laudable opportunities to work at, say, a law firm or as a marketing executive. They despise the notion that some women may indeed be drawn—instinctively and happily—toward creating special and loving environments in which to raise their children, while spending all their available time sustaining and enriching those environments and those children. They despise the parts of themselves that may be drawn to such roles, as well.”

—Instructed parents to keep their kids away from “Dancing with the Stars” when Chaz Bono appeared: “The last thing vulnerable children and adolescents need, as they wrestle with the normal process of establishing their identities, is to watch a captive crowd in a studio audience applaud on cue for someone whose search for an identity culminated with the removal of her breasts, the injection of steroids and, perhaps one day soon, the fashioning of a make-shift phallus to replace her vagina…. Chaz Bono should not be applauded any more than someone who, tragically, believes that his species, rather than gender, is what is amiss and asks a plastic surgeon to build him a tail of flesh harvested from his abdomen.”

—Compared being trans to a person pretending he or she is a farm animal: “Here’s an analogy: If a person came to me tattooed as a zebra—Zebraman… go on TV, but if you want me to agree with you that you’re a zebra, well now you’re invading my reality… It’s dancing with a woman as a man. I’m not going to have my kids watch a show in which people pretend to be farm animals.”

—Said the Benetton clothing company’s pro-acceptance ad campaign declared “psychological warfare” on religion, culture, and heterosexuals: “Make no mistake, this series of images published and posted along streets by Benetton is a declaration of psychological warfare on religious tradition and cultural mores and one that elevates narcissism and sexual gratification above intelligence and leadership. It is a direct message to the young people targeted by Benetton marketeers that theirs should be a generation defined by indulging in erotic pleasure above all else, and without regard to one’s religious vows, or moral standards, or respect for one’s office and public face, or one’s word…. If you are heterosexual, if you are a leader who believes your position demands decorum, if you are a person of substance who believes you should be valued for your mind, not just your sexuality, if you think that countries and religion deserve respect, not ridicule, you were attacked today by Benetton. You felt it. And you shouldn’t be talked out of your outrage.”

—Responding to an ad in which a mother playfully painted her child’s nails wrote: “This is a dramatic example of the way that our culture is being encouraged to abandon all trappings of gender identity—homogenizing males and females when the outcome of such ‘psychological sterilization’ [my word choice] is not known…. encouraging the choosing of gender identity, rather than suggesting our children become comfortable with the ones that they got at birth, can throw our species into real psychological turmoil—not to mention crowding operating rooms with procedures to grotesquely amputate body parts? Why not make race the next frontier? What would be so wrong with people deciding to tattoo themselves dark brown and claim African-American heritage? Why not bleach the skin of others so they can playact as Caucasians?”

—Claimed lesbian parents need to be studied to see if they “turned” their child transgender: “We have two women raising a child. He’s adopted. And he’s come to believe that he too is female. That argues for a complete psychological evaluation, not just of the boy, but of his parents as well to see whether psychological forces are at play here to make him say such things.” 

—In rant against transgender protections, suggested transgender students pose a threat to cisgender kids: “The mere fact that teachers and administrators will have to explain to kindergarten and first-grade students that they might see girls in the boys’ restroom, or boys in the girls’ locker room, but that those really aren’t kids of the gender they appear to be, could (and, here, data is sorely lacking) do harm to their own developing sense of self by suggesting to them that their gender is fluid, that it well might change for them, too, and that they should be on the lookout for signs that they want to switch.”

—In a 8/11/2011 column, conflated homosexuality and pedophilia as both being orientations; in scientific fact, pedophilia is a disorder, not an orientation. 

—Claimed same-sex marriage is a step towards the wholly unrelated matter of polygamy: “Well, three people can love each other, so polygamy has to be close behind. How can you have same-sex marriage and not believe three people can fall in love, which they absolutely can?” (timestamp 4:39–4:50)

—Gave credence to a widely discredited study suggesting gay parents are not ideal: ”What we should avoid at all costs is silencing such research and such discussion because it is seen by some as politically incorrect. Where optimizing the well-being of children is involved, no stone should be left unturned.”